Not long ago I heard a mother boasting of how she conquered her thirteen-year-old daughter. For some trivial disobedience she struck the child with a rod, which stung the child to anger, and roused her rebellious spirit. She refused to beg her mother’s pardon until deep red scars and seams lined her back, through which the red blood was seeping, and then pain forced her to break down and ask pardon. But was the girl sincere? Was she conquered, subdued? Was her spirit broken?
I hope not. A child with a broken spirit is a pitiable object. Her pride is forever injured. And the child that fears her mother can never love her in the true sense of filial affection. And if she was not sincere in begging her mother’s pardon, if it was only to escape the awful pain, then the first seeds of hypocrisy have been sown, and the child will never be truthful again.
I know a father who imagines that it is his paternal prerogative to punish his child whenever required, and he is to be the judge and jury to decide when the child needs punishment, and the extent of that punishment. He quotes Solomon to prove his position.
Not long ago his boy of five years refused to repeat a word dictated by his father, and for this disobedience the boy was made to stand on the floor erect, until conquered. The father didn’t try moral suasion or coaxing or petting. He was not in favor of arbitration between father and child. It was war to the finish. The boy’s rebellious spirit must be broken, at any cost. It was the father’s duty to conquer the child. The big strong man must triumph, because might is right. Solomon advised this.
It was 7 P. M. when the boy was first stood up on the floor. The father demanded obedience of the child when anger filled the child’s heart. It aroused the rebellious spirit—the boy would not be conquered. It was the courage and will that is to make the man a doer and a worker when childhood is gone, but the father didn’t realize it. At 10 o’clock the child fell over in a faint—unconquered and unsubdued—and was critically ill for many days.
That father may be right, but I do not believe it. I would give much to recall the one cruel blow I struck when my boy was a helpless child.
NOT A CLINGING VINE
Some men fail to win the woman they love, because they are physically too strong and powerful. Some women love to cling, as a vine, to the man who resembles the sturdy oak, but not all of them do—not even half the women do the clinging act. I know of a case where a strong man proposed to a beautiful girl who had entered a hospital to become a nurse. She did not appear quite strong enough to endure the strenuous duties of a nurse, but she insisted that she loved the work and would stick to it. Her lover sought to turn her from her chosen profession and become his wife, but she frankly told him that she did not love him enough to become his wife.